(skiracing.com) - Soelden. Aspen. St. Moritz. And now Courchevel.
Undefeated this season, Tina Maze appears unstoppable in GS, as she skied to her fifth win of the World Cup season under soft conditions with patchy light in France Sunday. Unlike some of her recent victories, however, it wasn't perfect. There were a couple glimmers of hope for the rest of the field, including the fact that Maze didn't win the second run — Mikaela Shiffrin did.
But when you're skiing as well as Maze, one small mistake before coming into the steeps isn't enough to ruin your day. The Slovenian, who set the fastest pace in the first run, controlled the race on the upper part of the course, as much as 0.74 seconds up at the second intermediate. However, she lost a little bit of speed toward the bottom to finish with a combined time of 2 minutes, 16.84 seconds — just more than two tenths faster than the day's second place finisher Kathrin Zettel, of Austria, who might have won the race if it were not for a costly mistake halfway down her second run.
With her second podium of the season, France's Tessa Worley appears to be back to form, at least in the giant slalom, where she picked up her second straight third-place result in the discipline, this time on home snow.
As for the Americans, Julia Mancuso logged by far her best giant slalom result of the season, sixth place, 2.33 seconds behind the pace of Maze. She skied aggressively up top, tight on every panel and as much as 0.58 seconds ahead of the pace set by then-leader Frida Hansdotter. But the time gradually slipped away from her toward the bottom.
"I was really happy to have a really good run, and finishing sixth is a great step in the right direction," said Mancuso. "It was a really turny first run, so that's why I think it was little more difficult than second run. They had to adjust because it snowed meters the week before, so to make sure we had a race and not lose it like last year, they put a lot of water in there and it was just really rough. … But I thought it actually turned out pretty good. Even though it was rough, it was pretty consistently rough."
Skiing the fastest second run of the day, Mikaela Shiffrin once again proved she is capable of setting the pace in GS at the World Cup level. Without the light in her favor, Shiffrin threw down a time 1:06.11, nearly a quarter-second faster than the next-best second-run time of Kathrin Zettel.
For Shiffrin — who finished the first run in 19th, skiing from bib No. 42 — it was her second World Cup top ten in the discipline. (The other was in Aspen earlier this season.) It wasn't a perfect run either, as a small mistake midway through the course set her back, but she was able to make up time toward the bottom of the run. The 17-year-old finished ninth on the day and, for the first time in GS, will start in the top 30 at Are in on Wednesday.
Lindsey Vonn joined the nearly 30 other racers who did not finish the first run.
For Maze, it's another 100 points toward her quest for the overall title this season. She currently sits way atop the leader board with 799 — a 331 point advantage of Maria Hoefl-Riesch (468). Kathrin Zettel sits in third with 440, and Vonn is in fourth with 414 points.